
Class A^ 

Book 

GcpightN". 



CDEOilGHT DEPOSIT. 






ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 



ADRIFT ON AN 
ICE-PAN 

BY 
WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL 

M.D. (OXON), G.M.G. 

ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 
BY DR. GRENFELL AND OTHERS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1909 






^ a; 



COPYRIGHT 1909 

BY WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

PUBLISHED JUNE I909 



LIBRARY Of CONGRESS 
Tv/o CoDies Received 

JUN H18U9 

Copyrit'nt entry. _ 
ASS M /JVC iS'j, 



CONTENTS 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ix 

ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN i 

APPENDIX 59 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL, 

M.D. (OXON), CM. G. . . Frontispiece ' 

THE SETTLEMENT AT ST. ANTHONY 2 - 

ON A JOURNEY FROM ST. ANTHONY 4- 

TRAVELLING ON BROKEN ICE ... 8 ^ 



PART OF DR. GRENFELl's TEAM . 12 



DR. GRENFELL AND JACK .... 20 

WITH THE JACKET MADE FROM MOCCASINS 

DOG 3o^ 



MEMORIAL TABLET, ST. ANTHONy's 
HOSPITAL, NEWFOUNDLAND . . 54 



i 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH^ 

' ' Most Noble Vice-Chancellor, 
AND You, Eminent Proctors : 

*'A citizen of Britain is before you, 
once a student in this University, 
now better known to the people of 
the New World than to our own. 
This is the man who fifteen years ago 
went to the coast of Labrador, to 
succor with medical aid the sohtary 
fishermen of the northern sea ; in 
executing which service he despised 
the perils of the ocean, which are 
there most terrible, in order to bring 
comfort and light to the wretched 
and sorrowing. Thus, up to the mea- 
sure of human ability, he seems to fol- 
low, if it is right to say it of any one, 

[xi] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

in the footsteps of Christ Himself, 
a-» a truly Christian man. Rightly 
then we praise him by whose praise 
not he alone, but our University also 
is honored. I present to you Wilfred 
Thomason Grenfell, that he may be 
admitted to the degree of Doctor in 
Medicine, honoris causa." 

Thus may be rendered the Latin 
address when, in May, 1907, for the 
first time in its history, the Univer- 
sity of Oxford c(^nf erred the honorary 
degree in medicine. With these fit- 
ting words was presented a man 
whose simple faith has been the 
motive power of his works, to whom 
pain and weariness of flesh have called 
no stay since there was discourage- 
ment never, to whom personal dan- 
ger has counted as nothing since fear 
is incomprehensible. ''As the Lord 

[xii] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

wills, whether for wreck or service, 
I am about His business." On No- 
vember gth of the preceding year, the 
King of England gave one of his 
' ' Birthday Honors " to the same man, 
making him a Companion of St. 
Michael and St. George (C. M. G.). 

Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, sec- 
ond son of the Rev. Algernon Sydney 
Grenfell and Jane Georgiana Hutch- 
inson, was born on the twenty- 
eighth day of February, eighteen 
hundred and sixty-five, at Mostyn 
House School, Parkgate, by Chester, 
England, of an ancestry which laid 
a firm foundation for his career and 
in surroundings which fitted him for 
it. On both sides of his inheritance 
have been exhibited the courage, 
patience, persistence, and fighting 
and teaching quaUties which are ex- 

[ xiii ] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

emplified in his own abilities to com- 
mand, to administer, and to uplift. 

On his father's side were the Gren- 
villes, who made good account of 
themselves in such cause as they ap- 
proved, among them Basil Grenville, 
commander of the Royalist Cornish 
Army, killed at Lansdown in i6/i3 
in defence of King Charles. 

" Four wheels to Charles's wain : 
Grenville, Trevanion, Slanning, Godolphin 
slain." 

There was also Sir Richard Gren- 
ville, immortalized by Tennyson in 
*'The Revenge," and John Pascoe 
Grenville, the right-hand man of 
Admiral Cochrane, who boarded the 
Spanish admiral's ship, the Esmer- 
alda, on the port side, while Coch- 
rane came up on the starboard, when 
together they made short work of 

r xiv 1 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

the capture. Nor has the strain died 
out, as is demonstrated in the pre- 
sent generation by many of Dr . Gren- 
fell's cousins, among them General 
Francis Wallace Grenfell, Lord Kil- 
vey, and by Dr. Grenfell himself on 
the Labrador in the fight against dis- 
ease and disaster and distress along 
a stormy and uncharted coast. 

On his mother's side, four of her 
brothers were generals or colonels in 
the trying times of service in India. 
The eldest fought with distinction 
throughout the Indian Mutiny and 
in the defence of Lucknow, and an- 
other commanded the crack cavalry 
regiment, the ''Guides," at Pesha- 
war, and fell fighting in one of the 
turbulent North of India wars. 

Of teachers, there was Dr. Gren- 
fell's paternal grandfather, the Rev. 

[XV] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Algernon Grenfell, the second of 
three brothers, house master at Rug- 
by under Arnold, and a fine classical 
scholar, whose elder and younger 
brothers each felt the ancestral call 
of the sea and became admirals, with 
brave records of daring and success. 

Dr. Grenf ell's father, after a bril- 
liant career at Rugby School and at 
Balliol College, Oxford, became as- 
sistant master at Repton, and later, 
when he married, head master of 
Mostyn House School, a position 
which he resigned in 1 882 to become 
Chaplain of the London Hospital. 
**He was a man of much learning, 
with a keen interest in science, a re- 
markable eloquence, and a fervent 
evangelistic faith . ' ' 

Mostyn House School still stands, 
enlarged and modernized, in the 

[ xvi ] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

charge of Dr. GrenfelFs elder broth- 
er, and in it his mother is still the 
real head and controlling genius. 

Parkgate, at one time a seaport 
of renown, when Liverpool was still 
unimportant, and later a seaside 
health resort to which came the fash- 
ion and beauty of England, had fall- 
en, through the silting of the estuary 
and the broadening of the ' ' Sands 
of Dee," to the level of a hamlet in 
the time of Dr. Grenf ell's boyhood. 
The broad stretch of seaward trend- 
ing sand, with its interlacing rivulets 
of fresh and brackish water, made a 
tempting though treacherous play- 
ground, alluring alike in the varied 
forms of Ufe it harbored and in the 
adventure which whetted explora- 
tion. Thither came Charles Kingsley, 
Canon of Chester, who married a 

[ xvii ] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Grenfell, and who coupled his verse 
with scientific study and made 
geological excursions to the river's 
mouth with the then Master of 
Mostyn House School. In these ex- 
cursions the youthful Wilfred was a 
participant, and therein he learned 
some of his first lessons in that ac- 
curacy of observation essential to his 
later life work. 

Here in this trained, but untram- 
meled, boyhood, with an inherited 
incentive to labor and an educated 
thirst for knowledge, away from the 
thrall of crowded communities, close 
to the wild places of nature, with the 
sea always beckoning and a rocking 
boat as familiar as the land, it is 
small wonder that there grew the 
fashioning of the purpose of a man , 
dimly at first, conceived in a home in 

[ xviii ] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

which all, both of tradition and of 
teaching, bred faith, reverence, and 
the sense of thanksgiving in useful- 
ness. 

From the school-days at Parkgate 
came the step to Marlborough Col- 
lege, where three years were marked 
by earnest study, both in books and 
in play, for the one gained a scholar- 
ship and the other an enduring inter- 
est in Rugby football. Matriculating 
later at the University of London, 
Grenfell entered the London Hospi- 
tal, and there laid not only the foun- 
dation of his medical education, but 
that of his friendship with Sir Fred- 
erick Treves, renowned surgeon and 
daring sailor and master mariner as 
well. With plenty of work to the 
fore, as a hospital interne, the ruling 
spirit still asserted itself, and the 

[xix] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

young doctor became an inspiration 
among the waifs of the teeming city ; 
he was one of the founders of the 
great Lads' Brigades which have done 
much good, and fostered more, in 
the example that they have set for 
allied activities. Nor were the needs 
of his ownbodilymachine neglected; 
football, rowing, and the tennis court 
kept him in condition, and his ath- 
letics served to strengthen his appeals 
totheLondon boys whom he enrolled 
in the brigades. He founded the inter- 
hospital rowing club at Putney and 
rowed in the first inter-hospital race ; 
he played on the Varsity football 
team, and won the '* throwing the 
hammer" at the sports. 

A couple of terms at Queen's Col- 
lege, Oxford, followed the London 
experience, but here the conditions 

[XX] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

were too easy and luxurious for one 
who, by both inheritance and train- 
ing, had within him the incentive to 
the strenuous hfe. Need called, mis- 
ery appealed, the message of life, of 
hope, and of salvation awaited, and 
the young doctor turned from Oxford 
to the medical mission work in which 
his record stands among the fore- 
most for its effectiveness and for the 
spirituality of its purpose. 

Seeking some way in which he 
could satisfy his medical aspirations, 
as well as his desire for adventure 
and for definite Christian work, he 
appealed to Sir Frederick Treves, a 
member of the Council of the Royal 
National Mission to Deep Sea Fisher- 
men, who suggested his joining the 
staff of the mission and establishing 
a medical mission to the fishermen 

^ [ xxi ] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

of the North Sea. The conditions of 
the hfe were onerous, the existing 
traffic in spirituous hquors and in all 
other demoralizing influences had to 
be fought step by step, prejudice and 
evil habit had to be overcome and to 
be replaced by better knowledge and 
better desire, there was room for 
both fighting and teaching, and 
the medical mission won its way. 
''When you set out to commend 
your gospel to men wfio don't want 
it, there 's onlyone way to go about 
it, — to do something for them that 
they'll be sure to understand. The 
message of love that was * made flesh 
and dwelt amongst men ' must be re- 
incarnate in our lives if it is to be 
received to-day." Thus came about 
the outfitting of the Albert hospital- 
ship to carry the message and the 

[ xxii ] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

help, by cruising among the fleets on 
the fishing-grounds, and the organi- 
zation of the Deep Sea Mission ; when 
this work was done, * ' when the fight 
had gone out of it," Dr. Grenfell 
looked for another field, for yet 
another need, and found it on that 
barren and inhospitable coast the 
Labrador, whose only harvest field 
is the sea. 

Six hundred miles of almost bar- 
ren rock with outlying uncharted 
ledges, worn smooth by ice, else still 
more vessels would have been found 
wreckage there ; a scant, constant 
population of hardy fishermen and 
their families, pious and God-fear- 
ing, most of them, but largely at the 
mercy of the local traders, who took 
their pay in fish for the bare neces- 
sities of living, with a large account 

[ xxiii ] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

always on the trader's side ; with 
such medical aid and ministration 
as came only occasionally, by the 
infrequent mail boat, and not at all 
in the long winter months when the 
coast was firm beset with ice, — to 
such a place came Dr. Grenfell sev- 
enteen years ago to cast in his lot 
with its inhabitants, to live there 
so long as he should, to die there 
were it God's will. 

As it stands to-day the Mission 
to Deep Sea Fishermen, which Dr. 
Grenfell represents, administers, and 
animates on the Labrador coast, not 
only brings hope, new courage, and 
spiritual comfort to an isolated peo- 
ple in a desolate land, but cares for 
the sick and injured, in its four 
hospitals and dispensary, provides 
house visitation by means of dog- 

[ xxiv ] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

sledge journeys covering hundreds 
of miles in a year, teaches whole- 
some and righteous living, conducts 
cooperative stores, provides for or- 
phans and for families bereft of the 
bread-winners by accidents of the 
sea, encourages thrift, and admin- 
isters justice, and adds to the wage- 
earning capacity and therefore food- 
obtaining power by operating a saw- 
mill, a schooner-building yard, and 
other productive industries. 

To accomplish this, to make of the 
scattered settlements a united and 
independent people, to safeguard 
their future by such measures as the 
establishment of a Seamen's Insti- 
tute at St. John's, Newfoundland, 
and the insurance of communication 
with the outside world, and to raise, 
by personal solicitation, the money 

[ XXV ] 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

needed for these enterprises, re- 
quires an unusual personality. Faith, 
courage, insight, foresight, the pow- 
er to win, and the ability to com- 
mand, — all of these and more of like 
qualities are embodied and portrayed 
in Dr. Grenfell. 

Clarence John Blake. 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

It was Easter Sunday at St. Anthony 
in the year 1908, but with us in 
northern Newfoundland still winter. 
Everything was covered with snow 
and ice. I was walking back after 
morning service, when a boy came 
running over from the hospital with 
the news that a large team of dogs 
had come from sixty miles to the 
southward, to get a doctor on a very 
urgent case. It was that of a young 
man on whom we had operated about 
a fortnight before for an acute bone 
disease in the thigh. The people had 
allowed the wound to close, the poi- 
soned matter had accumulated, and 
we thought we should have to re- 
[ I] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

move the leg. There was obviously, 
therefore, no time to be lost. So, 
having packed up the necessary in- 
struments, dressings, and drugs, and 
having fitted out the dog-sleigh with 
my best dogs, I started at once, the 
messengers following me with their 
team. 

My team was an especially good 
one. On many a long journey they 
had stood by me and pulled me out 
of difficulties by their sagacity and 
endurance. To a lover of his dogs, as 
every Christian man must be, each 
one had become almost as precious 
as a child to its mother. They were 
beautiful beasts: ''Brin," the clever- 
est leader on the coast; ''Doc," 
a large, gentle beast, the backbone 
of the team for power; ''Spy,'' a 
wiry, powerful black and white dog; 
[ 2 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

* * Moody," a lop-eared black-and-tan, 
in his third season, a plodder that 
never looked behind him; ''Watch," 
the youngster of the team, long- 
legged and speedy, with great hqnid 
eyes and a Gordon-setter coat; ' ' Sue," 
a large, dark Eskimo, the image of 
a great black wolf, with her sharp- 
pointed and perpendicular ears, for 
she ''harked back" to her wild an- 
cestry; ' 'Jerry," a large roan-colored 
slut, the quickest of all my dogs on 
her feet, and so affectionate that her 
overtiu-es of joy had often sent me 
sprawling on my back; "Jack," a 
jet-black, gentle-natured dog, more 
like a retriever, that always ran next 
the sledge , and never looked back but 
everlastingly pulled straight ahead, 
running always with his nose to the 
ground. 

[ 3 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

It was late in April, when there is 
always the risk of getting wet through 
the ice, so that I was carefully pre- 
pared with spare outfit, which in- 
cluded a change of garments, snow- 
shoes, rifle, compass, axe, and oilskin 
overdo thes. The messengers were 
anxious that their team should travel 
back with mine, for they were slow 
at best and needed a lead. My dogs, 
however, being a powerful team, 
could not be held back, and though 
I managed to wait twice for their 
sleigh, I had reached a village about 
twenty miles on the journey before 
nightfall, and had fed the dogs, and 
was gathering a few people for pray- 
ers when they caught me up. 

During the night the wind shifted 
to the northeast, which brought in 
fog and rain, softened the snow, and 
[ 4] 




ON A JOURNEY 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

made travelling very bad, besides 
heaving a heavy sea into the bay. 
Our drive next morning would be 
somewhat over forty miles, the first 
ten miles on an arm of the sea, on 
salt-water ice. 

In order not to be separated too 
long from my friends, I sent them 
ahead two hours before me, appoint- 
ing a rendezvous in a log tilt that we 
have built in the woods as a halfway 
house. There is no one living on all 
that long coast-line, and to provide 
against accidents — which have hap- 
pened more than once — we built 
this hut to keep dry clothing, food, 
and drugs in. 

The first rain of the year was falling 
when I started , and I was obliged to 
keep on what we call the ' ' ballica- 
ters," or ice barricades, much farther 

[ 5 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

up the bay than I had expected. The 
sea of the night before had smashed 
the ponderous covering of ice right 
to the land wash. There were great 
gaping chasms between the enor- 
mous blocks, which we call pans, and 
half a mile out it was all clear water. 
An island three miles out had pre- 
served a bridge of ice, however, and 
by crossing a few cracks I managed 
to reach it. From the island it was 
four miles across to a rocky promon- 
tory, — a course that would be sev- 
eral miles shorter than going round 
the shore. Here as far as the eye could 
reach the ice seemed good, though it 
was very rough. Obviously, it had 
been smashed up by the sea and then 
packed in again by the strong wind 
from the northeast, and I thought it 
had frozen together solid. 

[ 6 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

All went well till I was about a 
quarter of a mile from the landing- 
point. Then the wind suddenly fell, 
and I noticed that I was travelling 
over loose '*sish," which was like 
porridge and probably many feet 
deep. By stabbing down, I could 
drive my whip-handle through the 
thin coating of young ice that was 
floating on it. The sish ice consists 
of the tiny fragments where the large 
pans have been pounding together 
on the heaving sea, like the stones 
of Freya's grinding mill. 

So quickly did the wind now come 
off shore, and so quickly did the 
packed **slob," relieved of the wind 
pressure, ' ' run abroad," that already 
I could not see one pan larger than 
ten feet square; moreover, the ice 
was loosening so rapidly that I saw 

[ 7 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

that retreat was absolutely impossi- 
ble. Neither was there any way to get 
off the little pan I was surveying 
from. 

There was not a moment to lose. 
I tore off my oilskins, threw myself 
on my hands and knees by the side 
of the komatik to give a larger base 
to hold, and shouted to my team to 
go ahead for the shore. Before we 
had gone twenty yards, the dogs got 
frightened, hesitated for a moment, 
and the komatik instantly sank into 
the slob. It was necessary then for 
the dogs to pull much harder, so that 
they now began to sink in also. 

Earlier in the season the father of 
the very boy I was going to operate 
on had been drowned in this same 
way, his dogs tangling their traces 
around him in the slob. This flashed 

[ 8 ] 




-i 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

into my mind, and I managed to 
loosen my sheath -knife, scramble 
forward, find the traces in the water, 
and cut them, holding on to the 
leader's trace wound round my wrist. 

Being in the water I could see no 
piece of ice that would bear anything 
up. But there was as it happened 
a piece of snow, frozen together like 
a large snowball, about twenty-five 
yards away, near where my leading 
dog, '* Brin," was wallowing in the 
slob. Upon this he very shortly 
cHmbed, his long trace often fathoms 
almost reaching there before he went 
into the water. 

This doghas weird black markings 
on his face, giving him the appear- 
ance of wearing a perpetual grin. 
After chmbing out on the snow as if 
it were the most natural position in 

[ 9 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

the world he dehberately shook the 
ice and water from his long coat, and 
then turned round to look for me. 
As he sat perched up there out of the 
water he seemed to be grinning with 
satisfaction. The other dogs were 
hopelessly bogged. Indeed, we were 
like flies in treacle. 

Gradually, I hauled myself along 
the line that was still tied to my wrist, 
till without any warning the dog 
turned round and slipped out of his 
harness, and then once more turned 
his grinning face to where I was 
struggling. 

It was impossible to make any prog- 
ress through the sish ice by swim- 
ming, so I lay there and thought all 
would soon be over, only wondering 
if any one would ever know how it 
happened. There was no particu- 

[ 10 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

lar horror attached to it, and in fact I 
began to feel drowsy, as if I could eas- 
ily go to sleep, when suddenly I saw 
the trace of another big dog that 
had himself gone through before he 
reached the pan, and though he was 
close to it was quite unable to force 
his way out. Along this I hauled my- 
self, using him as a bow anchor, but 
much bothered by the other dogs as 
I passed them, one of which got 
on my shoulder, pushing me farther 
down into the ice. There was only a 
yard or so more when I had passed 
my living anchor, and soon I lay 
with my dogs around me on the little 
piece of slob ice. I had to help them 
on to it, working them through the 
lane that I had made. 

The piece of ice we were on was 
so small it was obvious we must soon 
[ II ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

all be drowned, if we remained upon 
it as it drifted seaward into more open 
water. If we were to save our lives, 
no time was to be lost. When I stood 
up, I could see about twenty yards 
away a larger pan floating amidst the 
sish, like a great flat raft, and if we 
could get on to it we should post- 
pone at least for a time the death that 
already seemed almost inevitable. 
It was impossible to reach it without 
a life line, as I had already learned to 
my cost, and the next problem was 
how to get one there. Marvellous to 
relate , when I had first fallen through, 
after I had cut the dogs adrift without 
any hope left of saving myself, I had 
not let my knife sink , but had fastened 
it by two half hitches to the back 
of one of the dogs. To my great joy 
there it was still, and shortly I was 
[ 12 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

at work cutting all the sealskin traces 
still hanging from the dogs' har- 
nesses, and splicing them together 
into one long line. These I divided 
and fastened to the backs of my two 
leaders, tying the near ends round 
my two wrists. I then pointed out to 
*'Brin" the pan I wanted to reach 
and tried my best to make them go 
ahead, giving them the full length 
of my hues from two coils. My long 
sealskin moccasins, reaching to my 
thigh, were full of ice and water. 
These I took off and tied separately 
on the dogs' backs. My coat, hat, 
gloves, and overalls I had already 
lost. At first, nothing would induce 
the two dogs to move, and though I 
threw them off the pan two or three 
times, they struggled back upon it, 
which perhaps was only natural, 

[ i3 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

because as soon as they fell through 
they could see nowhere else to make 
for. To me, however, this seemed 
to spell *'the end." Fortunately, I 
had with me a small black spaniel, 
almost a featherweight, with large 
furry paws, called "Jack," who acts 
as my mascot and incidentally as my 
retriever. This at once flashed into 
my mind, and I felt I had still one 
more chance for hfe. So I spoke to 
him and showed him the direction, 
and then threw a piece of ice toward 
the desired goal. Without a moment's 
hesitation he made a dash for it, and 
to my great joy got there safely, the 
tough scale of sea ice carrying his 
weight bravely. At once I shouted to 
him to ''lie down," and this, too, he 
immediately did, looking like a little 
black fuzz ball on the white setting. 
[ i4 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

My leaders could now see him seated 
there on the new piece of floe, and 
when once more I threw them off 
they understood what I wanted, and 
fought their way to where they saw 
the spaniel, carrying with them the 
line that gave me the one chance for 
my life. The other dogs followed 
them, and after painful struggling, 
all got out again except one. Taking 
all the run that I could get on my 
little pan, I made a dive, shthering 
with the impetus along the surface 
till once more I sank through. After 
a long fight, however, I was able to 
haul myself by the long traces on 
to this new pan, having taken care 
beforehand to tie the harnesses to 
which I was holding under the dogs' 
bellies, so that they could not sHp 
them off. But alas I the pan I was now 

[ i5 1 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

on was not large enough to bear us 
and was already beginning to sink, 
so this process had to be repeated 
immediately. 

I now realized that, though we 
had been working toward the shore, 
we had been losing ground all the 
time, for the off-shore wind had al- 
ready driven us a hundred yards far- 
ther out. But the widening gap kept 
full of the pounded ice, through 
which no man could possibly go. 

I had decided I would rather stake 
my chances on a long swim even 
than perish by inches on the floe, as 
there was no likelihood whatever of 
being seen and rescued. But, keenly 
though I watched, not a streak even 
of clear water appeared, the intermin- 
able sish rising from below and filling 
every gap as it appeared. We were 

[ i6 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

now resting on a piece of ice about 
ten by twelve feet, which, as I found 
when I came to examine it, was not 
ice at all, but simply snow-covered 
slob frozen into a mass, andlfeared it 
would very soon break up in the gen- 
eral turmoil of the heavy sea, which 
was increasing as the ice drove off 
shore before the wind. 

At first we drifted in the direction 
of a rocky point on which a heavy 
surf was breaking. Here I thought 
once again to swim ashore. But sud- 
denly we struck a rock. A large piece 
broke off the already small pan, and 
what was left swung round in the 
backwash, and started right out to 
sea. 

There was nothing for it now but 
tohopeforarescue. Alas I there was 
little possibihty of being seen. As I 
[ 17 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

have already mentioned, no one lives 
around this big bay. My only hope 
was that the other komatik, knowing 
I was alone and had failed to keep 
my tryst, would perhaps come back 
to look for me. This, however, as it 
proved, they did not do. 

The westerly wind was rising all 
the time, our coldest wind at this 
time of the year, coming as it does 
over the Gulf ice. It was tantalizing, 
as I stood with next to nothing on, 
the wind going through me and every 
stitch soaked in ice- water, to see my 
well-stocked komatik some fifty yards 
away. It was still above water, with 
food, hot tea in a thermos bottle, dry 
clothing, matches, wood, and every- 
thing on it for making a fire to attract 
attention. 

It is easy to see a dark object on 

[ i8 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

the ice in the daytime, for the gor- 
geous whiteness shows off the least 
thing. But the tops of bushes and 
large pieces of kelp have often de- 
ceived those looking out. Moreover, 
within our memory nomanhas been 
thus adrift on the bay ice. The 
chances were about one in a thou- 
sand that I should be seen at all, and 
if I were seen, I should probably be 
mistaken for some piece of refuse. 

To keep from freezing, I cut off 
my long moccasins down to the feet, 
strung out some line, split the legs, 
and made a kind of jacket, which pro- 
tected my back from the wind down 
as far as the waist. I have this jacket 
still, and my friends assure me it 
would make a good Sunday gar- 
ment. 

I had not drifted more than half 
[ 19 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

a mile before I saw my poor komatik 
disappear through the ice, which 
was every minute loosening up into 
the small pans that it consisted of, 
and it seemed like a friend gone and 
one more tie with home and safety 
lost . To the northward , about a mile 
distant, lay the mainland along which 
I had passed so merrily in the morn- 
ing, — only, it seemed, afew moments 
before. 

By mid-day I had passed the is- 
land to wliich I had crossed on the 
icebridge. I could see that the bridge 
was gone now. If I could reach the 
island I should only be marooned 
and destined to die of starvation. 
But there was little chance of that, 
for I was rapidly driving into the 
ever widening bay. 

It was scarcely safe to move on 

[ ao ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

my small ice raft, for fear of break- 
ing it. Yet I saw I must have the 
skins of some of my dogs , — of which 
I had eight on the pan, — if I was to 
live the night out. There was now 
some three to five miles between me 
and the north side of the bay. There, 
immense pans of Arctic ice, surging 
to and fro on the heavy ground seas, 
were thundering into the cliffs like 
medieval battering-rams. It was evi- 
dent that, even if seen, I could hope 
for no help from that quarter before 
night. No boat could hve through the 
surf. 

Unwinding the sealskin traces from 
my waist, round which I had wound 
them to keep the dogs from eating 
them, I made a slip-knot, passed it 
over the first dog's head, tied it round 
my foot close to his neck, threw him 

[ 21 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

on his back, and stabbed him in the 
heart. Poor beast 1 I loved him hke 
a friend, — a beautiful dog, — but we 
could not all hope to live. In fact, I 
had no hope any of us would, at that 
time, but it seemed better to die 
fighting. 

In spite of my care the struggHng 
dog bit me rather badly in the leg. 
I suppose my numb hands prevented 
my holding his throat as I could or- 
dinarily do. Moreover, I must hold 
the knife in the wound to the end, 
as blood on the fur would freeze 
solid and make the skin useless. In 
this way I sacrificed two more large 
dogs, receiving only one more bite, 
though I fully expected that the pan 
I was on would break up in the strug- 
gle. The other dogs, who were lick- 
ing their coats and trying to get dry, 

[ 22 ] 




DOC 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

apparently took no notice of the fate 
of their comrades, — but I was very 
careful to prevent the dying dogs 
crying out, for the noise of fighting 
would probably have been followed 
by the rest attacking the down dog, 
and that was too close to me to be 
pleasant . A short shrift seemed to me 
better than a long one, and I envied 
the dead dogs whose troubles were 
over so quickly. Indeed, I came to 
balance in my mind whether, if once 
I passed into the open sea, it would 
not be better by far to use my faith- 
ful knife on myself than to die by 
inches. There seemed no hardship 
in the thought. I seemed fully to 
sympathize with the Japanese view of 
hara-kiri. 

Working, however, saved me from 
philosophizing. By the time I had 

— [ 23 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

skinned these dogs, and with my 
knife and some of the harness had 
strung the skins together, I was ten 
miles on my way, and it was getting 
dark. 

Away to the northward I could 
see a single light in the little village 
where I had slept the night before, 
where I had received the kindly hos- 
pitahty of the simple fishermen in 
whose comfortable homes I have 
spent many a night. I could not help 
but think of them sitting down to 
tea, with no idea that there was any 
one watching them, for I had told 
them not to expect me back for three 
days. 

Meanwhile I had frayed out a small 

piece of rope into oakum, and mixed 

it with fat from the intestines of my 

dogs. Alas, my match-box, which 

[ 24 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

was always chained to me, had 
leaked, and my matches were in pulp. 
Had I been able to make a light, it 
would have looked so unearthly out 
there on the sea that I felt sure they 
would see me. But that chance was 
now cut off. However, I kept the 
matches, hoping that I might dry 
them if I lived through the night. 
While working at the dogs, about 
every five minutes I would stand up 
and wave my hands toward the land. 
I had no flag, and I could not spare 
my shirt, for, wet as it was, it was 
better than nothing in that freezing 
wind, and, anyhow, it was already 
nearly dark. 

Unfortunately , the coves in among 
the cHffs are so placed that only for 
a very narrow space can the people 
in any house see the sea. Indeed, 

[ 25 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

most of them cannot see it at all, so 
that I could not in the least expect 
any one to see me, even supposing 
it had been daylight. 

Not daring to take any snow from 
the surface of my pan to break the 
wind with, I piled up the carcasses of 
my dogs. With my skin rug I could 
now sit down without getting soaked. 
During these hours I had continually 
taken off all my clothes, wrung them 
out, swung them one by one in the 
wind, and put on first one and then 
the other inside, hoping that whati* 
heat there was in my body would thus 
serve to dry them. In this I had been 
fairly successful. 

My feet gave me most trouble, for 
they immediately got wet again be- 
cause my thin moccasins were easily 
soaked through on the snow. I sud- 
[ 26 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

denly thought of the way in which 
the Lapps who tend our reindeer 
manage for dry socks. They carry 
grass with them, which they ravel 
up and pad into their shoes. Into 
this they put their feet, and then pack 
the rest with more grass, tying up 
the top with a binder. The ropes of 
the harness for our dogs are carefully 
sewed all over with two layers of 
flannel in order to make them soft 
against the dogs' sides. So, as soon 
as I could sit down, I started with my 
trusty knife to rip up the flannel. 
Though my fingers were more or less 
frozen, I was able also to ravel out the 
rope, put it into my shoes, and use 
my wet socks inside my knicker- 
bockers, where, though damp, they 
served to break the wind. Then, 
tying the narrow strips of flannel to- 
[27 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

gether, I bound up the top of the 
moccasins, Lapp-fashion, and car- 
ried the bandage on up over my knee, 
making a ragged though most excel- 
lent puttee. 

As to the garments I wore, I had 
opened recently a box of football 
clothes I had not seen for twenty 
years. I had found my old Oxford 
University football running shorts 
and a pair of Richmond Football 
Club red, yellow, and black stockings, 
exactly as I wore them twenty years 
ago. These with a flannel shirt and 
sweater vest were now all I had left. 
Coat, hat, gloves, oilskins, every- 
thing else, were gone, and I stood 
there in that odd costume, exactly as 
I stood twenty years ago on a football 
field, reminding me of the little girl 

of a friend, who, when told she was 

[ 28 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

dying, asked to be dressed in her 
Sunday frock to go to heaven in. My 
costume, being very light, dried all 
the quicker, until afternoon. Then 
nothing would dry anymore, every- 
thing freezing stiff. It had been an 
ideal costume to struggle through 
the slob ice. I really beheve the con- 
ventional garments missionaries are 
supposed to affect would have been 
fatal. 

My occupation tiU what seemed 
like midnight was unravelling rope, 
and with this I padded out my knick- 
ers inside, and my shirt as well, 
though it was a clumsy job, for I 
could not see what I was doing. Now, 
getting my largest dog, Doc, as big 
as a wolf and weighing ninety-two 
pounds, I made him he down, so that 
I could cuddle round him. I then 
[ 29 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

wrapped the three skins around me, 
arranging them so that I could he on 
one edge, while the other came just 
over my shoulders and head. 

My own breath collecting inside 
the newly flayed skin must have had 
a soporific effect, for I was soon fast 
asleep. One hand I had kept warm 
against the curled up dog, but the 
other, being gloveless, had frozen, 
and I suddenly awoke, shivering 
enough, I thought, to break my 
fragile pan. What I took at first to 
be the sun was just rising, but I soon 
found it was the moon, and then I 
knew it was about half-past twelve. 
The dog was having an excellent 
time. He hadn't been cuddled so 
warm all winter, and he resented my 
moving with low growls till he found 
it wasn't another dog. 

[ 3o] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

The wind was steadily driving 
me now toward the open sea, and I 
could expect, short of a miracle, no- 
thing but death out there. Some- 
how, one scarcely felt justified in 
praying for a miracle. But we have 
learned down here to pray for things 
we want, and, anyhow, just at that 
moment the miracle occurred. The 
wind fell off suddenly, and came with 
a light air from the southward, and 
then dropped stark calm. The ice 
was now ''all abroad/' which I was 
sorry for, for there was a big safe 
pan not twenty yards away from me. 
If I could have got on that, I might 
have killed my other dogs when the 
time came, and with their coats I 
could hope to hold out for two or 
three days more, and with the food 
and drink their bodies would offer 

[ 3i ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

me need not at least die of hunger 
or thirst. To tell the truth, they were 
so big and strong I was half afraid to 
tackle them with only a sheath-knife 
on my small and unstable raft. 

But it was now freezing hard. I 
knew the calm water between us 
would form into cakes, and I had 
to recognize that the chance of get- 
ting near enough to escape on to it 
was gone. If, on the other hand, the 
whole bay froze solid again I had yet 
another possible chance. For my pan 
would hold together longer and I 
should be opposite another village, 
called Goose Cove, at daylight, and 
might possibly be seen from there. 
I knew that the komatiks there would 
be starting at daybreak over the hills 
for a parade of Orangemen about 
twenty miles away. Possibly, there- 

[ 32 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

fore, I might be seen as they chmbed 
the hills. So I lay down, and went to 
sleep again. 

It seems impossible to say how 
long one sleeps, but I woke with a 
sudden thought in my mind that I 
must have a flag ; but again I had no 
pole and no flag. However, I set to 
work in the dark to disarticulate the 
legs of my dead dogs, which were 
now frozen stiff, and which were all 
that offered a chance of carrying any- 
thing like a distress signal. Cold as 
it was, I determined to sacrifice my 
shirt for that purpose with the first 
streak of dayhght. 

It took a long time in the dark 
to get the legs off, and when I had 
patiently mailed them together with 
old harness rope and the remains of 
the skin traces, it was the heaviest 

[33 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

and crookedest flag-pole it has ever 
been my lot to see. Ihad had no f ood 
from six o'clock the morning before, 
when I had eaten porridge and bread 
and butter. I had, however, a rub- 
ber band which I had been wearing 
instead of one of my garters, and I 
chewed that for twenty-four hours. 
It saved me from thirst and hunger, 
oddly enough. It was not possible 
to get a drink from my pan, for it 
was far too salty. But anyhow that 
thought did not distress me much, 
for as from time to time I heard the 
cracking and grinding of the newly 
formed slob, it seemed that my de- 
voted boat must inevitably soon go 
to pieces. 

At last the sun rose, and the time 

came for the sacrifice of my shirt. So 

I stripped, and, much to my surprise, 

[ 34 ] 



^ 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

found it not half so cold as I had an- 
ticipated. I now re-formed my dog- 
skins with the raw side out, so that 
they made a kind of coat quite rival- 
ling Joseph's. But, with the rising 
of the sun, the frost came out of the 
joints of my dogs' legs, and the fric- 
tion caused by waving it made my 
flag-pole almost tie itself in knots. 
Still, I could raise it three or four feet 
above my head, which was very im- 
portant. 

Now, however, I found that in- 
stead of being as far out at sea as I 
had reckoned, I hadidrifted back in a 
northwesterly direction, and was off 
some cliffs known as Ireland Head. 
Near these there was a little village 
looking seaward, whence I should 
certainly have been seen . But, as I had 

myself, earlier in the winter, been 
[35] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

night -bound at this place, I had 
learnt there was not a single soul liv- 
ing there at all this winter. The peo- 
ple had all, as usual, migrated to the 
winter houses up the bay, where they 
get together for schooling and social 
purposes. 

I soon found it was impossible to 
keep waving so heavy a flag all the 
time, and yet I dared not sit down, 
for that might be the exact moment 
some one would be in a position to 
see me from the hills. The only thing 
in my mind was how long I could 
stand up and how long go on waving 
that pole at the cliffs. Once or twice 
I thought I saw men against their 
snowy faces, which, I judged, were 
about five and a half miles from me, 
but they were only trees. Once, also, 
I thought I saw a boat approaching. 

[ 36 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

A glittering object kept appearing 
and disappearing on the water, but 
it was only a small piece of ice spar- 
kling in the sun as it rose on the sur- 
face. I think that the rocking of my 
cradle up and down on the waves had 
helped me to sleep, for I felt as well 
as ever I did in my life ; and with the 
hope of a long sunny day, I felt sure 
I was good to last another twenty- 
four hours, — if my boat would hold 
out and not rot under the sun's rays. 
Each time I sat down to rest, my big 
dog '*Doc" came and kissed my face 
and then walked to the edge of the 
ice-pan, returning again to where I 
was huddled up, as if to say, *'Why 
don't you come along? Surely it is 
time to start." The other dogs also 
were now moving about very rest- 
lessly, occasionally trying to satisfy 
[ 37 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

iiheir hunger by gnawing at the dead 
bodies of their brothers. 

I determined, at mid-day, to kill a 
big Eskimo dog and drink his blood, 
as I had read only a few days before 
in ' ^Farthest North " of Dr. Nansen's 
doing, — that is, if Isurvived the bat- 
tle with him . I could not help feehng, 
even then, my ludicrous position, 
and I thought, if ever I got ashore 
again, I should have to laugh at my- 
self standing hour after hour waving 
my shirt at those lofty cliffs, which 
seemed to assume a kind of sardonic 
grin, so that I could almost imagine 
they were laughing at me. At times 
I could not help thinking of the good 
breakfast that my colleagues were en- 
joying at the back of those same cliffs, 
and of the snug fire and the comfort- 
able room which we call our study. 

;[ 38 1 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

I can honestly say that from first 
to last not a single sensation of fear 
entered my mind, even when I was 
struggling in the slob ice. Somehow 
it did not seem unnatural ; I had been 
through the ice half a dozen times 
before. For the most part I felt very 
sleepy, and the idea was then very 
strong in my mind that I should soon 
reach the solution of the mysteries 
that I had been preaching about for 
so many years. 

Only the previous night (Easter 
Sunday) at prayers in the cottage, we 
had been discussing the fact that the 
soul was entirely separate from the 
body, that Christ's idea of the body 
as the temple in which the soul 
dwells is so amply borne out by 
modern science. We had talked of 
thoughts from that admirable book, 
[ 39 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

*' Brain and Personality," by Dr. 
Thompson of New York, and also 
of the same subject in the light of a 
recent operation performed at the 
Johns Hopkins Hospital by Dr. Har- 
vey Gushing. The doctor had re- 
moved from a man's brain two large 
cystic tumors without giving the 
man an anaesthetic, and the patient 
had kept upa running conversation 
with him all the while the doctor's 
fingers were working in his brain. 
It had seemed such a striking proof 
that ourselves and our bodies are 
two absolutely different things. 

Our eternal hfe has always been 
with me a matter of faith. It seems 
to me one of those problems that 
must always be a mystery to know- 
ledge. But my own faith in this mat- 
ter had been so untroubled that it 
[ 4o ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

seemed now almost natm*al to be 
leaving through this portal of death 
from an ice-pan. In many ways, also, 
I could see how a death of this kind 
might be of value to the particular 
work that I am engaged in. Except 
for my friends, I had nothing I could 
think of to regret whatever. Cer- 
tainly, I should like to have told them 
the story. But then one does not carry 
folios of paper in running shorts 
which have no pockets, and all my 
writing gear had gone by the board 
with the komatik. 

I could still see a testimonial to my- 
self some distance away in my khaki 
overalls, which I had left on another 
pan in the struggle of the night be- 
fore. They seemed a kind of com- 
pany, and would possibly be picked 
up and suggest the true story. Run- 
[ 4i ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

ning through my head all the time, 
quite unbidden, were the words of 
the old hymn : — 

* ' My God, my Father, while I stray 
Far from my home on life's dark way. 
Oh, teach me from my heart to say. 
Thy will be done ! " 

It is a hymn we hardly ever sing 
out here, and it was an unconscious 
memory of my boyhood days. 

It was a perfect morning, — a co- 
balt sky, an ultramarine sea, a golden 
sun, an almost wasteful extravagance 
of crimson over hills of purest snow, 
which caught a reflected glow from 
rock and crag. Between me and the 
hills lay miles of rough ice and long 
veins of thin black slob that had 
formed diu-ing the night. For the 
foreground there was my poor, grue- 
some pan, bobbing up and down on 

[42 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

the edge of the open sea, stained with 
blood, and Uttered with carcasses and 
deb r is. It was smaller than last night, 
and I noticed also that the new ice 
from the water melted under the 
dogs' bodies had been formed at the 
expense of its thickness. Five dogs, 
myself in colored football costume, 
and a bloody dogskin cloak, with a 
gay flannel shirt on a pole of frozen 
dogs' legs, completed the picture. 
The sun was almost hot by now, and 
I was conscious of a surplus of heat 
in my skin coat. I began to look long- 
ingly at one of my remaining dogs, 
for an appetite will rise even on an 
ice-pan, and that made me think of 
fire. So once again I inspected my 
matches. Alas I the heads were in 
paste, all but three or four blue-top 
wax ones. 

[43 1 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

These I now laid out to dry, while 
I searched about on my snow-pan to 
see if I could get a piece of trans- 
parent ice to make a burning-glass. 
For I was pretty sure that with all 
the unravelled tow I had stuffed into 
my leggings, and with the fat of my 
dogs, I could make smoke enough 
to be seen if only I could get a light. 
I had found a piece which I thought 
would do, and had gone back to wave 
my flag, which I did every two min- 
utes, when I suddenly thought I saw 
again the glitter of an oar. It did not 
seem possible, however, for it must 
be remembered it was not water 
which lay between me and the land, 
but slob ice, which a mile or two in- 
side me was very heavy. Even if peo- 
ple had seen me, I did not think they 
could get through, though I knew 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

that the whole shore would then 
be trying. Moreover, there was no 
smoke rising on the land to give me 
hope that I had been seen. There 
had been no gun-flashes in the night, 
and I felt sure that, had any one seen 
me, there would have been a bonfire 
on every hill to encourage me to 
keep going. 

So I gave it up, and went on with 
my work. But the next time I went 
back to my flag, the glitter seemed 
very distinct, and though it kept dis- 
appearing as it rose and fell on the 
surface, I kept my eyes strained upon 
it, for my dark spectacles had been 
lost, and I was partly snowblind. 

I waved my flag as high as I could 
raise it, broadside on. At last, beside 
the glint of the white oar, I made out 
the black streak of the hull. I knew 

[45 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

that, if the pan held on for another 
hour, I should be all right. 

With that strange perversity of 
the human intellect, the first thing 
I thought of was what trophies I 
could carry with my luggage from 
the pan, and I pictured tlie dog-bone 
flagstaff adorning my study. (The 
dogs actually ate it afterwards.) I 
thought of preserving my ragged 
puttees with our collection of curios- 
ities. I lost no time now at the burn- 
ing-glass. My whole mind was de- 
voted to making sure I should be 
seen, and I moved about as much as 
I dared on the raft, waving my sorry 
token aloft. 

At last there could be no doubt 
about it: the boat was getting nearer 
and nearer. I could see that my res- 
cuers were frantically waving, and, 
[ 46 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

when they came within shouting dis- 
tance, I heard some one cry out, 
' * Don't get excited. Keep on the pan 
where you are . ' ' They were infinitely 
more excited than I. Aheady to me 
it seemed just as natural now to be 
saved as, half an hour before, it had 
seemed inevitable I should be lost, 
and had my rescuers only known, as 
I did, the sensation of a bath in that 
ice when you could not dry yourself 
afterwards, they need not have ex- 
pected me to follow the example of 
the apostle Peter and throw myself 
into the water. 

As the man in the bow leaped 
from the boat on to my ice raft and 
grasped both my hands in his, not a 
word was uttered. I could see in his 
face the strong emotions he was try- 
ing hard to force back, though in 

[ 47 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

spite of himself tears trickled down 
his cheeks. It was the same with each 
of the others of my rescuers, nor was 
there any reason to be ashamed of 
them. These were not the emblems 
of weak sentimentahty, but the evi- 
dences of the realization of the deep- 
est and noblest emotion of which the 
human heart is capable, the vision 
that God has use for us his creatures, 
the sense of that supreme joy of the 
Christ, — the joy of unselfish service. 
After the hand-shake and swallow- 
ing a cup of warm tea that had been 
thoughtfully packed in a bottle, we 
hoisted in my remaining dogs and 
started for home. To drive the boat 
home there were not only five New- 
foundland fishermen at the oars, but 
five men with Newfoundland muscles 
in their backs, and five as brave hearts 

[ 48 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

as ever beat in the bodies of human 
beings. 

So, slowly but steadily, we forged 
through to the shore, now jumping 
out on to larger pans and forcing 
them apart with the oars, now haul- 
ing the boat out and dragging her 
over, when the jam of ice packed 
tightly in by the rising wind was im- 
possible to get through otherwise. 

My first question, when at last we 
found our tongues, was, ''How ever 
did you happen to be out in the boat 
in this ice?" To my astonishment 
they told me that the previous night 
four men had been away on a long 
headland cutting out some dead harp 
seals that they had killed in the fall and 
left to freeze up in a rough wooden 
store they had built there, and that as 
they were leaving for home, my pan 

[ 49 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

of ice had drifted out clear of Hare 
Island, and one of them, with his 
keen fisherman's eyes, had seen 
something unusual. They at once re- 
turned to their village, saying there 
was something alive drifting out to 
sea on the floe ice. But their report 
had been discredited, for the people 
thought that it could be only the top 
of some tree. 

All the time I had been driving 
along I knew that there was one man 
on that coast who had a good spy- 
glass. He tells me he instantly got up 
in the midst of his supper, on hear- 
ing the news, and hurried over the 
cliffs to the lookout, carrying his 
trusty spy-glass with him. Immedi- 
ately, dark as it was, he saw that 
without any doubt there was a man 
out on the ice. Indeed, he saw me 

[ 5o ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

wave my hands every now and again 
towards the shore. By a very easy 
process of reasoning on so uninhab- 
ited a shore, he at once knew who it 
was, though some of the men argued 
that it must be some one else. Little 
had I thought, as night was closing 
in, that away on that snowy hilltop 
lay a man with a telescope patiently 
searching those miles of ice for me. 
Hastily they rushed back to the vil- 
lage and at once went down to try to 
launch a boat, but that proved to be 
impossible. Miles of ice lay between 
them and me, the heavy sea was hurl- 
ing great blocks on the landwash, 
and night was already falling, the 
wind blowing hard on shore. 

The whole village was aroused, 
and messengers were despatched at 
once along the coast, and lookouts 

[ 5i ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

told off to all the favorable points, 
so that while I considered myself a 
laughing-stock, bowing with my flag 
to those unresponsive cliffs, there 
were really many eyes watching me. 
One man told me that with his glass 
he distinctly saw me waving the shirt 
flag. There was little slumber that 
night in the villages, and even the 
men told me there were few dry 
eyes, as they thought of the impossi- 
bility of saving me from perishing. 
We are not given to weeping over- 
much on this shore, but there are 
tears that do a man honor. 

Before daybreak this fine volun- 
teer crew had been gotten together. 
The boat, with such a force behind 
it of wiU power, would, I believe, 
have gone through anything. And, 
after seeing the heavy breakers 

[ 52 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

through which we were guided, 
loaded with their heavy ice battering- 
rams, when at last we ran through 
the harbor-mouth with the boat on 
our return, I knew well what wives 
and children had been thinking of 
when they saw their loved ones put 
out. Only two years ago I remember 
a fisherman's wife watching her hus- 
band and three sons take out a boat 
to bring in a stranger that was show- 
ing flags for a pilot. But the boat and 
its occupants have not yet come 
back. 

Every soul in the village was on 
the beach as we neared the shore. 
Every soul was waiting to shake 
hands when I landed. Even with the 
grip that one after another gave me, 
some no longer trying to keep back 
the tears, I did not find out my hands 

[ 53 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 
were frost-burnt, — a fact I have not 
been slow to appreciate since, how- 
ever. I must have been a weird sight 
as I stepped ashore, tied up in rags, 
stuffed out with oakum, wrapped in 
the bloody skins of dogs, with no 
hat, coat, or gloves besides, and only 
a pair of short knickers. It must have 
seemed to some as if it were the old 
man of the sea coming ashore. 

But no time was wasted before a 
pot of tea was exactly where I wanted 
it to be, and some hot stew was lo- 
cating itself where I had intended an 
hour before the blood of one of my 
remaining dogs should have gone. 

Rigged out in the warm garments 
that fishermen wear, I started with 
a large team as hard as I could race 
for the hospital, for I had learnt that 
the news had gone over that I was 
[ 54 1 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 
lost. It was soon painfully impressed 
upon me that I could not much enjoy 
the ride, for I had to be hauled like 
a log up the hills, my feet being frost- 
burnt so that I could not walk. Had 
I guessed this before going into the 
house, I might have avoided much 
trouble. 

It is time to bring this egotistic nar- 
rative to an end. ' ' Jack " lies curled 
up by my feet while I write this short 
account. ' * Brin " is once again lead- 
ing and lording it over his fellows. 
''Doc" and the other survivors are 
not forgotten, now that we have 
again returned to the less romantic 
episodes of a mission hospital hfe. 
There stands in our hallway a bronze 
tablet to the memory of three noble 
dogs, Moody,Watch, and Spy, whose 
lives were given for mine on the ice. 

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ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 
In my home in England my brother 
has placed a duplicate tablet, and has 
added these words, ' * Not one of them 
is forgotten before your Father which 
is in heaven." And this I most fully 
believe to be true. The boy whose life 
I was intent on saving was brought 
to the hospital a day or two later in 
a boat, the ice having cleared off the 
coast not to return for that season. 
He was operated on successfully, and 
is even now on the high road to re- 
covery. We all love life. I was glad 
to be back once more with possibly 
a new lease of it before me. I had 
learned on the pan many things, but 
chiefly that the one cause for regret, 
when we look back on a life which 
we think is closed forever, will be 
the fact that we have wasted its op- 
portunities. As I went to sleep that 

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ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 
first night there still rang in my ears 
the same verse of the old hymn 
which had been my companion on 
the ice, ''Thy will, not mine, 
Lord." 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX 

One of Dr. Grenfell's volunteer help- 
ers, Miss Luther of Providence, R. I., 
[contributes the following account of 
the rescue as recited in the New- 
foundland vernacular by one of the 
[•escuing party. 

* ' One day, about a week after Dr. 
Grenfell's return," says Miss Luther, 
*'two men came in from Griquet, 
[ifteen miles away. They had walked 
ill that distance, though the trail 
was heavy with soft snow and they 
Dften sank to their waists and waded 
through brooks and ponds. 'We just 
felt we must see the doctor and tell 
!iim what 't would 'a' meant to us. 
If he 'd been lost.' Perhaps nothing 

[ 6i ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

but the doctor's own tale could be 
more graphic than what was told by 
George Andrews, one of the crew 
who rescued him." 

THE rescuers' STORY 

* ' It was wonderfu' bad weather that 
Monday mornin'. Th' doctor was to 
Lock's Cove. None o' we thought o' 
'is startin' out. I don't think th' doc- 
tor hisself thought o' goin' at first an' 
then 'e sent th' two men on ahead for 
to meet us at th' tilt an' said like 's 'e 
was goin' after all. 

'''Twas even' when us knew 'e 
was on th' ice. George Davis seen un 
first. 'E went to th' cliff to look for 
seal. It was after sunset an' half dark, 
but 'e thought 'e saw somethin' on 
th' ice an' 'e ran for George Read an' 
'e got 'is spy-glass an' made out a 
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ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

man an' dogs on a pan an' knowed it 
war th' doctor. 

* ' It was too dark fur we t' go t' un, 
but us never slept at all, all night. 
I could n' sleep. Us watched th' wind 
an' knew if it did n' blow too hard us 
could get un, — though 'e was then 
three mile off a'ready. So us waited 
for th' daylight. No one said who 
was goin' out in th' boat. Un 'ud 
say, 'Is you goin' ? ' An' another, *Is 
you?' I didn' say, but I knowed 
what I 'd do. 

' * As soon as 't was light us went to 
th' cliff wi' th' spy-glass to see if us 
could see un, but thar war n't no- 
thin' in sight. Us know by the wind 
whar t' look fur un, an' us launched 
th^ boat. George Read an' 'is two 
sons, an' George Davis, what seenun 
first, an' me, was th' crew. George 

[63 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

Read was skipper-man an' th' rest 
was just youngsters. The sun was 
warm, — you mind't was afinemorn- 
in', ^an' us started in our shirt an' 
braces fur us knowed thar 'd be hard 
work to do. I knowed thar was a 
chance o' not comin' back at all, 
but it didn' make no difference. I 
knowed I 'd as good a chance as any, 
an' Hwa^ for th' doctor, an' 'is life's 
worth many, an' somehow I could n' 
let a man go out like dat wi^out try- 
in^ fur un, an' I think us all felt th' 
same. 

*'Us'ad a good strong boat an' 
four oars, an' took a hot kettle o' tea 
an' food for a week, for us thought 
u'd 'ave i' go far an' p'rhaps lose th" 
boat an' 'ave t' walk ashore un th' ice. 
I din' 'ope to find the doctor alive an' 
kept lookin' for a sign of un on th' 
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ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

pans. 'Twa' no' easy gettin^ to th' 
pans wi' a big sea runnin' I Th' big 
pans 'ud sometimes heave together 
an' near crush th' boat, an' some- 
times us ^ad t' git out an' haul her 
over th' ice t' th' water again. Then 
us come t' th' slob ice where th"* pan 
'ad ground together, an' 'twas all 
thick, an' that was worse 'n any. Us 
saw th' doctor about twenty minutes 
afore us got V un. 'E was wavin' 'is 
flag an' I seen "im. 'E was on a pan 
no bigger 'n this flor, an' I dunno 
what ever kep"* un fro' goin' abroad, 
for "t was n't ice, "t was packed snow. 
Th' pan was away from even th' slob, 
floatin' by hisself, an' th' open water 
all roun', an' 't was just across fro' 
Goose Cove , an' outside o' that there'd 
been no hope. I think th^ way th"* pan 
held together was on account o' th' 

[ 65 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

dogs' bodies meltin'* it an' 't froze 
hard durin' th' night. 'E was level 
with th^ water an' th' sea washin' 
over us all th^ time. 

'* When us got near un, it didn' 
seem like 'twas th' doctor. 'E looked 
so old an' ''is face such a queer color. 
'E was very solemn-like when us 
took un an^ th' dogs on th' boat. No 
un felt like sayin' much, an' 'e 'ardly 
said nothin^ till us gave un some tea 
an' loaf an' then 'e talked. I s'pose 
'e was sort o' faint-like. Th' first 
thing 'e said was, how wonderfu' 
sorry 'e was o' gettin' into such a 
mess an' givin' we th' trouble o' 
comin' out for un. Us tol' un not to 
think o' that ; us was glad to do it for 
un, an' 'e 'd done it for any one o' we, 
many times over if 'e 'ad th' chance ; 
— an' so 'e would. An' then 'e fretted 

[ 66 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

about th" b'y 'e was goin' to see, it 
bein' too late to reach un, an' us toF 
un 'is life was worth so much more 'n 
th' b'y, fur 'e could save others an' 
th' b'y could n'. But 'e still fretted. 

*' 'E 'ad ripped th' dog-harnesses 
an' stuffed th' oakum in th' legs 
o' 'is pants to keep un warm. 'E 
showed it to we. An' 'e cut off th' 
tops o' 'is boots to keep th' draught 
from 'is back. 'E must 'a' worked 'ard 
all night. ""E said 'e droled off once 
or twice, but th' night seemed won- 
derfu' long. 

** Us took un off th' pan at about 
half-past seven, an' 'ad a 'ard fight 
gettin' in, th' sea still runnin' 'igh. 
'E said 'e was proud to see us comin' 
for un, and so 'e might, for it grew 
wonderfu' cold in th' day and th' sea 
so 'igh the pan could n' 'a' Uved out- 
[ 67 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

side. 'E would n' stop when us got 
ashore, but must go right on, an' 
when 'e 'ad dry clothes an' was a bit 
warm, us sent un to St. Anthony 
with a team. 

*'Th' next night, an' for nights 
after, I could n' sleep. I 'd keep seein' 
that man standin' on th' ice, an' I 'd 
be sorter half-awake like, sayin', * But 
not th' doctor. Sure not th' doctor.'' " 

There was silence for a few mo- 
ments, and George Andrews looked 
out across the blue harbor to the 
sea. 

' ' 'E sent us watches an' spy-glass- 
es," said he, ''an' pictures o' hisself 
that one o' you took o' un, made 
large an' in a frame. George Read 
an' me 'ad th' watches an' th' others 
'ad th' spy-glasses. 'Ere 's th' watch. 
It 'as * In memory o' April 21st' on 

[ 68 ] 



ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN 

it, but us don't need th' things to 
make we remember it, tho' we 're 
wonderful glad t' 'ave 'em from th' 
doctor." 



cy 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



